Lord Warner: My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Ivan Lewis) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	On 5 June I was pleased to announce new funding of £27million spread over three years for children's hospice services. Applications for the Children's Hospice and Children's Hospice at Home Grant have now been considered by a group which included key stakeholders and I am pleased to announce that 35 hospice services successfully applied for grants and will benefit from this funding. The payments will be made as soon as possible.
	At the same time as announcing this grant I announced a review of children's hospice services and subsequently announced in a Written Ministerial Statement on 18 September that the review had been extended to consider the long term sustainability of children's palliative care services and funding more generally. I am pleased to announce that Professor Sir Alan Craft and Ms Sue Killen have agreed to lead this important review. The consultation phase of this review commenced in October and contributions are being sought. Contact can be made with the review team at childpalliativecare@dh.gsi.gov.uk. I expect the review to be completed by spring 2007.

Lord Triesman: My honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Dr Kim Howells) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	With the support of Her Majesty's Government, the United Nations Security Council on 14 October 2006 unanimously adopted UNSCR 1718 (2006) under Chapter VII of the UN charter. The Security Council's rapid and decisive action, in response to DPRK's nuclear test on 9 October, sends a strong signal to the DPRK Government that the international community will not tolerate their irresponsible and provocative actions.
	The resolution is targeted at stopping the DPRK's WMD and missile programmes and changing the behaviour of the regime in Pyongyang. We now expect the DPRK to comply with the resolution and return to the six-party talks without pre-conditions. If it does comply fully with the resolution's provisions and if the talks resume successfully, the UK would expect the Security Council to lift the measures imposed by the resolution.
	The resolution backs these demands by imposing sanctions against the DPRK. All states have a legal obligation to comply. The individual sanctions comprise an assets freeze and travel ban on individuals and entities involved in or supporting DPRK's nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes; a ban on making funds available to those individuals and entities; a ban on the export or supply of certain substantial military items, nuclear materials, missiles and sensitive technologies; the export of luxury goods; the provision of any technical assistance, training or other advice in relation to the military or nuclear/ballistic-missile items and the procurement of any of the sensitive items so that DPRK cannot export proliferation-sensitive technologies to other countries. The resolution also includes a provision calling on states to inspect cargo going to and from DPRK subject to action being in conformity with international law and member states' own national laws, where such action is necessary to prevent illicit trafficking in prohibited goods and materials.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My honourable friend the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety (Tony McNulty) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	Following the decision to abandon plans for police force mergers in the immediate future, I agreed in principle to provide police authorities with assistance towards the additional costs incurred through the preparatory work they had carried out. The Home Office invited claims for the marginal costs incurred and these have now been received from all authorities. The Metropolitan Police Service and City of London Police have claimed no additional costs.
	In deciding how best to contribute towards these claims, consideration has been given to the need to treat all forces fairly given the wide disparity in the amounts claimed. Other factors included:
	the affordability of the total amount of money to be paid out;where costs have been incurred by individual forces or authorities on behalf of others; andspecific advice given to individual police forces and police authorities to make financial commitments, including an undertaking to provide additional funds to support the work of the pilot strategic force merger of Lancashire and Cumbria constabularies.
	An upper limit of £100,000 has been applied to the amount to be paid to any single police authority, in line with these considerations. Exceptions to this upper limit are:
	Lancashire and Cumbria police authorities, because their claims include joint programme office commitments undertaken on specific advice from the Home Office which also undertook to meet the exceptional start-up costs associated with the pioneer status of this merger group;Lincolnshire police authority, because its claim includes premises costs on behalf of its merger group incurred on specific advice from the Home Office; and Dorset police authority, because its claim is made on behalf of the five south-west region forces and authorities (Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire).
	No reimbursement for opportunity costs is being made.
	The table below provides the figures for amounts claimed and the award of payments to be made in respect of those claims on this basis.
	Forces and authorities will be notified of the amounts allocated to them and asked to provide a confirmation that the amounts claimed have been stated in accordance with the terms of the original invitation.
	
		
			 Police Authority Amount Sought Payment to be made 
			 Bedfordshire £23,430 £23,430 
			 Cambridgeshire £242,714 £100,000 
			 Cheshire £339,767 £100,000 
			 City £- £- 
			 Cleveland £189,986 £100,000 
			 Cumbria £271,000 £271,000 
			 Derbyshire £58,469 £35,782* 
			 Dorset (for the 5 SW forces) £140,836 £140,836 
			 Durham £67,155 £67,155 
			 Dyfed-Powys £225,891 £100,000 
			 Essex £169,870 £100,000 
			 GMP £75,810 £75,810 
			 Gwent £96,467 £96,467 
			 Hampshire £11,495 £11,495 
			 Hertfordshire £144,327 £100,000 
			 Humberside £119,730 £100,000 
			 Kent £152,042 £100,000 
			 Lancashire £725,000 £725,000 
			 Leicestershire £37,232 £37,232 
			 Lincolnshire £287,600 £287,600 
			 Merseyside £266,357 £100,000 
			 Metropolitan £- £- 
			 Norfolk £135,729 £100,000 
			 North Wales £245,020 £100,000 
			 North Yorkshire £167,808 £100,000. 
			 Northamptonshire £85,800 £85,800 
			 Northumbria £38,021 £38,021 
			 Nottinghamshire £46,200 £46,200 
			 South Wales £326,944 £.100,000 
			 South Yorkshire £30,652 £30,652 
			 Staffordshire £56,317 £56,317 
			 Suffolk £45,483 £45,483 
			 Surrey £649,311 £100,000 
			 Sussex £519,879 £100,000 
			 Thames Valley £33,860 £33,860 
			 Warwickshire £174,608 £100,000 
			 West Mercia £89,061 £89,061 
			 West Midlands £117,591 £100,000 
			 West Yorkshire £104,569 £100,000 
			
			 *Legal costs of Judicial Review proceedings will not be met by the Home Office.

Baroness Amos: As an experiment this summer Members were entitled to table six additional Questions for Written Answer, on Monday 4 September. I am grateful to the House authorities, particularly the Table Office, for their co-operation in the successful conduct of the experiment.
	34 Members chose to take advantage of the experiment, tabling a total of 141 Questions for Written Answer. A breakdown by answering department is given in the table below.
	129 of these questions (91 per cent) had been answered by 6pm on Monday 9 October, the day the House returned after the Summer Recess.
	In due course I will make a proposal to the Procedure Committee about future arrangements.
	
		
			 Department Questions tabled on 4 September 
			 CO 3 
			 DCLG 5 
			 DCMS 5 
			 DEFRA 14 
			 DfCA 5 
			 DfES 6 
			 DfID 4 
			 DfT 12 
			 DOH 12 
			 DTI 5 
			 DWP 3 
			 FCO 9 
			 HMT 11 
			 Home 22 
			 LHoL 1 
			 MOD 20 
			 NI 4